Exact analysis of montgomery multiplication

Abstract

The Montgomery multiplication is often used for efficient implementations of public-key cryptosystems. This algorithm occasionally needs an extra subtraction in the final step, and the correlation of these subtractions can be considered as an invariant of the algorithm. Some side channel attacks on cryptosystems using Montgomery Multiplication has been proposed applying the correlation estimated heuristically. In this paper, we theoretically analyze the properties of the final subtraction in Montgomery multiplication. We investigate the distribution of the outputs of multiplications in the fixed length interval included between 0 and the underlying modulus. Integrating these distributions, we present some proofs with a reasonable assumption for the appearance ratio of the final subtraction, which have been heuristically estimated by previous papers. Moreover, we present a new invariant of the final subtraction: x · y with y = 3z mod m, where m is the underlying modulus. Finally we show a possible attack on elliptic curve cryptosystems using this invariant. Keywords: timing attack, elliptic curve cryptosystem, Montgomery multiplication, randomization. © Springer-Verlag 2004.